I absolutely agree with everything Summerlander said. Excellently written. I was typing up a similar response when he posted: we make our own personal meaning. Don't look at the infinite sky, keep your eyes on the ground and maybe you won't go insane.

Maybe purpose is a preconceived notion. Maybe people would never get anxious/depressed or have existential meltdowns if they hadn't been told all their life that there is such a thing AS purpose. How much more healthy would a child/individual be if from childhood they were told that "purpose and meaning" are fallacies and the universe is a machine functioning on a few basic physical principles and little more? It's hard to say; at our current state, everyone grows up surrounded by popular social philosophy: ideas like destiny and soul mates and religion.

When people spend their entire lives operating under such painful delusions as, "Everything happens for a reason," they are bound for nothing but disappointment and misery and confusion. When terrible things happen (as they are bound to do) and life does not pan out the way they had intended or hoped for (as it is CERTAIN to do), this person will be flung into such manic questioning of why the universe decided to do this. How many times have we heard, "Why me?" But when a person realizes and accepts the truth of reality, he/she is far better equipped to lead a happy, productive life.

Every time I'm speaking with someone who is suffering, they always say the same thing. They always ask for a reason it is happening, and they resort to theologizing the motives and actions of some great magnanimous God. What they really need is a total shift in perspective to something more realistic.

People don't need destiny for bad things to happen. Or a religious reason for bad things to happen. And religion isn't the main reason why depression develops if you ever read about it, as depression is a mental issue.Depression mostly develops because of either a mental illness, traumatic event, or abuse. If a person suffers from mood swings, depression is going to be one of those mood swings that a person will suffer from.

Depressed people will often believe that they have no purpose in life and that their existence is meaningless anyways without you needing to preach that to them. Some depressed people will even kill themselves because they believe that. I don't think you need to work hard to preach that to some people. And if you wish to preach that to the depressed, then good for you.

Goodbye forever...I dare you Summer and Deschain, to find where I am hiding, and try to attack.

Nobody said religion is the sole cause of depression. But it can certainly be a contributor. Depressed people kill themselves because they have stumbled upon a defeatist and self-destructive state of mind. They don't see any purpose to their existence in a negative way.

What deschainXIX is talking about is something slightly, if not completely, different. What if individuals don't have the pressure to become someone? What if their goals are not all there is, in their minds, and they can be at peace when unsuccessful. I think there is definitely a bliss to be attained if one stops looking at the world based on likes and dislikes. Likes and dislikes certainly get in the way of happiness. Eventually you lose everything so it is always best to avoid becoming too attached to your possessions. There is truth in the old Buddhist aphorism: Desire is the source of suffering.

Christopher Hitchens died of esophageal cancer. During the writing of his last book "Mortality," just before he passed away, he was asked if he ever questioned, "Why me?" He replied: "Why not me? I'm just another statistic..."

On his deathbed he also mentioned that the religious proposition seemed more absurd than ever before...

[ Post made via Android ]

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

"...the absence of representation is not the same as the representation of absence. And the representation of presence is not the same as the presence of representation. But this is hard to believe. Our conviction that we are somehow directly acquainted with special properties or features in our experience is one of the most powerful intuitions confronting anyone trying to develop a good theory of consciousness. I've been chipping at it, trying to undermine its authority, but there's still more work to be done."

- Daniel Dennett

[ Post made via Android ]

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

Summerlander wrote:"...the absence of representation is not the same as the representation of absence. And the representation of presence is not the same as the presence of representation. But this is hard to believe. Our conviction that we are somehow directly acquainted with special properties or features in our experience is one of the most powerful intuitions confronting anyone trying to develop a good theory of consciousness. I've been chipping at it, trying to undermine its authority, but there's still more work to be done."

- Daniel Dennett

[ Post made via Android ]

So you admit I'm right then?

Is Lucid Dreaming the brains preparation for the next step of human evolution when we can escape the corporeal bond of our bodies?

I wrote up a post refuting every sentence nesgirl said in reply to me. But what's the point? She will not take a step back. I do, however, wish to say a few things for all other parties present.

I was not speaking of mental disorder (as all thinking persons knew when they read my thoughts). I was speaking of the true and honest feelings and incomprehensible thoughts one is overcome by when one opens a door and sees nothing behind it but infinity and emptiness. Realizing everything is nothing, that your existence is an illusion, that whatever you are now will cease to be and the world will forget you and everything and everyone you ever knew will cease to exist and forget one another and forget they ever even knew one another. I was speaking of fundamental, psychological paradigm shifts towards something more realistic from an earlier age, which subsequently would trump all of this horror before it could infect someone. Mental disorder, however, is a quantitative neurological dysfunction.

If what you are saying is true, than what is the point of EVEN existing to begin with exactly? Why get mad at the depressed people who see no point in their existence then?

I have negative mood swings fairly often, and will see things on the negative side fairly often because of it.

What deschainXIX is talking about is something slightly, if not completely, different. What if individuals don't have the pressure to become someone? What if their goals are not all there is, in their minds, and they can be at peace when unsuccessful. I think there is definitely a bliss to be attained if one stops looking at the world based on likes and dislikes. Likes and dislikes certainly get in the way of happiness. Eventually you lose everything so it is always best to avoid becoming too attached to your possessions. There is truth in the old Buddhist aphorism: Desire is the source of suffering.

Not when you get persecuted all the time when you are unsuccessful, when you fail consistently, or you just get persecuted, it isn't going to lead to peace and happiness. After a while, it will just to the person developing depression and self-loathing. Some cases it may even lead to a mental disorder.

Sorry but everyone has their own likes or dislikes, and whether a person is willing to accept their likes or dislikes it is their own problem. I don't care if it leads to misery or not (and I am a negative person anyways)/

Goodbye forever...I dare you Summer and Deschain, to find where I am hiding, and try to attack.

Lol! Buildit, I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion but if you must know, Dennett was talking about the discontinuous nature of consciousness seeming continuous, and referring to perceptual deficits such as the blind spot. The brain will not register the blind spot as a black hole as this would still constitute a percept based on visual input from that area. The case is that there is none, no visual data, so you just don't see it, i.e. you are not aware of the blind spot until you follow the instructions for the appropriate optical illusion that will expose it. (Check out the one where you see a black dot disappear when you know something should be there - all you see is a continuation of the white background of the page or screen.)

Now re-read Dennett's quote above and it should make more sense to you.

This is a perfect example of someone desperately wanting to be right without evidence. Consciousness, as I said before, is a puzzle waiting to be solved. Dennett's multiple drafts theory is a good candidate and can include even conditions such as multiple personality disorder (several selves in one body) whereas the fallacious Cartesian Theatre can only contend with one and doesn't even begin to explain it. Dualism is simply false.

And nesgirl, maybe the advice is to be careful what you wish for because you might not get it. Some people will never respect you so simply move on. As Scott Adams would say to you, they are not worth it, just noisy furniture, so avoid them. Or their noise (insults) could alternatively become music to your ears. The healthy mind, and I speak for myself here, has this capacity. It can colour its heterophenomenological world to the self's liking. But not many know this and linger on the dogma that intended insults will always be negatively meaningful and affect them therein.

@deschain: Hitchens so it coming a mile away!

[ Post made via Android ]

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

Summerlander wrote:And nesgirl, maybe the advice is to be careful what you wish for because you might not get it. Some people will never respect you so simply move on. As Scott Adams would say to you, they are not worth it, just noisy furniture, so avoid them. Or their noise (insults) could alternatively become music to your ears. The healthy mind, and I speak for myself here, has this capacity. It can colour its heterophenomenological world to the self's liking. But not many know this and linger on the dogma that intended insults will always be negatively meaningful and affect them therein.

That professor and class has been a BIG reason I have had terrible mood swings this semester to begin with. His insults and many religious people who were also hetero insulted my asexuality. And it ticked me off. This is likely why I have been so angry at heteros the whole time, because of the constant insults I have been receiving from many of them. Also this video kind of made me angry at them, poor guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfnAOcBirAs (A couple of my sisters got the exact opposite treatment from their exes; Agree on his views on life, but not on others or the job and the fact that my views are asexual in comparison to his, except for I do distrust everyone)

Goodbye forever...I dare you Summer and Deschain, to find where I am hiding, and try to attack.